Evil Dead II

A.V. Club conversations are often punctuated by
shocked exclamations of "I can't believe you've never seen/heard/read that!"
followed by grumbling questions about critical backgrounds and general
worthiness. ("What kind of asshole hasn't seen Citizen Kane/Crocodile Dundee?") In an effort to catch
up, we present "Better Late Than Never," in which one A.V. Clubber admits to a tragic
pop-cultural blind spot, then goes about filling it.

This week, it's Evil Dead II, a movie I've been
bludgeoned with references to since high school, but which I haven't seen for
two distinct reasons: I'm afraid it won't live up to the hype, and I'm afraid
that I'm past the age at which a movie like Evil Dead II can register as truly
great. It feels like one of those movies that needs to be seen at a formative
movie-going age to really stick. Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, The A.V. Club conference room was
absolutely aghast that I'd never seen it, and film editor Scott Tobias insisted
that I watch it as soon as possible. He'll probably end up throwing his two
cents at the film in a future "New Cult Canon." Our conference room looked a
lot like this scene from High Fidelity:

So here's the snap judgment: I liked it very much,
thank you. I'm not generally one for campy ridiculousness or gore movies: I
watched my share of Troma films way back when, and always thought they were
pretty funny, but these days, I have
no desire to watch gore for gore's sake, even if it's ostensibly funny. I saw Grindhouse the weekend it opened and
liked it pretty well, but I don't generally go out of my way to see splatter
movies. I think they're kinda played—I'm not offended, just bored.

What I apparently failed to realize after years of
prodding is that Evil Dead II is, in fact, a comedy. Not a horror-comedy, but a
flat-out comedy that happens to live in a world of blood and monsters. As such,
it succeeds magnificently. Sure, it got a little tired for me around an hour in
(I'm like Roger Ebert! See the clip below), but it was mostly hilarious, fast,
ridiculous fun. Released in 1987, before the digital revolution, Sam Raimi's
breakthrough looks extremely dated, but that's where a good chunk of its charm
stems from: latex monsters, disembodied heads and hands, and clunky stop-motion
that lends the whole thing a slapstick vibe rather than a scary one. Here's a
weird word to describe Evil Dead II, but I can think of none more appropriate: It's
delightful. Watching it is like watching a young band find true inspiration in cheap
gear and a bad studio. There's greatness to be had even with a small budget, as
long as there's a little bit of love (and various colors of blood) to be had.

Anyway, the plot, for those of you haven't seen
it. (Who am I kidding? You've all seen it.) Bruce Campbell, who basically built
a career out of these 84 minutes, stars as Ash. He goes out to a creepy cabin
in the woods with his girlfriend, ostensibly to get it on. (Oh, I should most
certainly point out here that I have not seen the original Evil Dead, only read about it. I'm
told I don't really need to, but that I should see Army Of Darkness, which is essentially Evil
Dead III.)
Bad things begin to happen, starting with his girlfriend being possessed.
Campbell chops her head off with a shovel and buries her with a certain
sense of matter-of-factness.

It's after the corpse is reanimated—you saw
that coming, right?—that it becomes clear how funny/weird/unscary Evil
Dead II
actually is: The naked body does a little dance, searching for its head, which
it eventually finds. Bruce Campbell, meanwhile, emotes like a man with
something to emote about, but that isn't bad acting or overacting—it's
beyond either of those things.

Here's Siskel and Ebert's review, which includes
some key scenes, and mentions The Three Stooges:

From there, EDII just keeps getting more
over-the-top: The "book of the dead" has allowed an evil portal to be opened,
and evil is represented by white smoke, a spooky first-person camera, and
people who turn into rubbery monsters. (And sometimes turn back.) In the second
piece of proof (after the dancing corpse) that EDII was as inspired as much
by The Three Stooges as it was by any horror film, Campbell must battle his own
hand, which turns evil and tries to kill him. (The only thing missing is Curly
Howard's "Woob-woob-woob!" noises.)

I don't want to recount the whole movie here,
because much of the fun comes from seeing how Raimi tops himself. Entire scenes
are filled with screams and blood and beatings, but it's never the slightest
bit scary. Let me leave you with this one, though: Campbell's severed hand is
eventually replaced by a chainsaw, which he uses to battle the baddies. In a
scene right out of The A-Team, he gears up, then looks at himself with
satisfaction and says just one word to sum up the entire adventure: "Groovy." I
agree. And I can't believe I didn't see it sooner.